Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

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Sparky Prime
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

Post by Sparky Prime »

Onslaught Six wrote:There's that whole thing about why you dislike The Ascending and AHM and I don't want to get into it now because it's always cyclical. We'd be better off reading the old thread.
I don't dislike The Ascending. I have criticisms of it and certainly I think it should have been better but I still enjoyed it. AHM on the other hand, ok that became cyclical. But that's hardly only on me, as your bringing it up (despite trying to deflect it) like this goes to show.
Shockwave wrote:I think O6 was saying that you have a unique way of taking an off hand comment and turning it into a 10+ page philisophical argument. Which I kind of enjoy because if nothing else, it gives me an excuse to exercise my brain.
Hrm... I wouldn't really say that's because of me specifically. Other boards I visit generally don't generate this level of debate. I think that's more the unique gathering of different perspective's we've got here. But I'd agree that I find it enjoyable to exercise the brain with some of these debates.
Gomess wrote:Did you *mean* for that to sound so surreptitious? That's petty.
Not at all. I was just making the observation since I hadn't realized you'd edited that post until I saw O6's quoting it. I wanted to point out that I have in fact cited information, since you'd added the claim I hadn't, while I was responding to O6. 'Two birds' as it were. I would have just gone back and commented on the other things you'd added as well, but frankly, it's clear this debate is just going to keep dragging on and on, especially with how I feel so many of my points are being deflected or ignored more so than facing actual rebuttal, so I really don't see much of a point in it anymore.
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

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Sparky Prime wrote:so many points are being deflected or ignored more so than facing actual rebuttal
Agreed.
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

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Gomess wrote:
Sparky Prime wrote:so many points are being deflected or ignored more so than facing actual rebuttal
Agreed.
Now that seems like a petty thing to do, subtlety changing what I said like that, and actually kinda goes to show what I meant when I said that...
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

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So you don't acknowledge ignoring or deflecting *any* points made by the four people who've disagreed with something you've said thus far...?
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

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Well I would have to answer nobody is perfect, *especially* when arguing against several people at once while I am the only one you four had to address. However, to my knowledge, I tried to directly address the points argued against me. Why? Was there something you thought I deliberately ignored or deflected? I'd be willing to address it, if there is.
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

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Gomess wrote:
Sparky Prime wrote:
Dominic wrote:But, ultimately, the dilithium crystals will fracture right t about the same time the winds of magic shift and the astronomicon fades....when the writers decide they need it to.
That's not "winds of magic shift", that's called a plot twist, and its something *any* story can have.
See, this is what I'm talking about. Dom has essentially said, "Regardless of what you CALL a plot device that doesn't exist in our world (regardless of whether it "might someday"), it will do what it needs to for the story to continue." And you've responded, "No, all stories have plot devices". Banana spoon owl?
This is one example of how you often give what I consider non sequitur responses. No matter how many times Dom and Trekwave said, "We're focusing on the aesthetics", you responded "You guys are only analysing the aesthetics".

You also make sweeping generalisations like, "Science fantasy is a term used in literature and literary criticism" with no kind of citation. If you'd said, "It's a term I've heard used in literary discourse", fair enough, but you implied it was a normalised term with some historical precedent. Maybe I missed something, but it all seemed incredibly cyclical. Did you feel like the debate was going anywhere?

Maybe it's a result of the internet not allowing us to convey our tones of voice or what we really mean, but both O6 and I have pointed out that you frequently don't give straight answers. In all likelihood, it could just be that the debates O6 and I have had with others in our lives happened to be more didactic, so we're used to getting "Yes" or "No" answers, or sticking to a single point until it's been resolved.

And please don't take any of this as a personal attack, Sparky; I'm just trying to answer your question, and have no desire to beat you down or anything. We all have our own issues when it comes to debate, but I'm glad we've got enough brains between us to even have one.
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

Post by Shockwave »

Well what I've noticed is that a lot of times I think terminology gets mixed up. Sparky will say one thing that to him conveys what he wants to say but I'll wind up interpreting it incorrectly and then we'll have to go 10 pages of debating and mostly trying to reword or articulate what we both actually mean. The AHM Starscream debate was a perfect example of this as he and I actually did wind up agreeing on the point we were debating but it took about that many pages just to figure that out. I will definitely agree that one of the things I like about posting here is that we do have the intelligence to get into these debates. I actually do find them enjoyable.

As for the current debate, Sparky I do understand your point (which is kind of why I've not responded to certain points because I'm trying to focus on the larger argument rather than getting hung up on the details) but I think maybe I just disagree with it? I mean, I get that the difference between sci-fi and sword and sorcery is scientific beleivability but from a literary storytelling standpoint, that's really not much of a difference in my opinion. Like Dom was pointing out, if you write a story that needs an explosion it doesn't matter if it comes from a laserbeam or a magic fireball. An explosion is an explosion is an explosion.
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

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Yes. If a writer needs a specific plot device to work, it doesn't matter how plausible it sounds at the time. George Lucas invented lightsabers because lightsabers look cool and sound awesome.
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

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Often it seems internet debates come down to little more than a harmless difference of opinion. Probably we should all just encourage each other's diverse views for some shared lulz. It's community building! Like how I get ripped on for how I used to pass of my mixture of tattered memories and fanon ofJapanese TF cartoons seen in my youth as canon, when I really should've bothered to use the internet to confirm it and save a few of you a lot of bother.

I do like how adamant Sparky is in his belief. Mostly because, as far as I can tell, he doesn't think sci-fi is BETTAR than fantasy or anything. He just appreciates their inherent differences. More than most of us. =3
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Re: Primal and AirRazor- love in the air ;)

Post by Sparky Prime »

Gomess wrote:This is one example of how you often give what I consider non sequitur responses. No matter how many times Dom and Trekwave said, "We're focusing on the aesthetics", you responded "You guys are only analysing the aesthetics".
You must have skipped several posts because this is a difference Shockwave and I had argued about already. Shockwave had pointed out he was arguing "on a conceptual level" as he put it, to which I agreed his argument was. But I'd argued Dom's argument was much more generalized than that, dealing with the two genres as a whole. Something I'd point out here that Dom didn't dispute. Dom never argued that he was "focusing on the aesthetics", rather he argued the differences between the two are "largely aesthetic". In other words, his argument is along the lines of "new packaging, same product". While my argument has been that they aren't the same product, that there is differences beyond aesthetics.
You also make sweeping generalisations like, "Science fantasy is a term used in literature and literary criticism" with no kind of citation. If you'd said, "It's a term I've heard used in literary discourse", fair enough, but you implied it was a normalised term with some historical precedent. Maybe I missed something, but it all seemed incredibly cyclical. Did you feel like the debate was going anywhere?
I never said anything of the sort to make such a "sweeping generalization". All I pointed out while using that term is that stories that combine elements of sci-fi and fantasy are generally categorized as a separate sub-genre, "like science-fantasy". No kind of citation? As I recall, you had pointed out yourself that you'd been able to find the term on Wikipedia, to which I'd commented I was referencing what I learned from a science fiction lit. course I took in college. And when you pressed me for some author/critic who had used the term, I'd pointed out an author, James Blish, who defined the term in a book that was published in 1970. While on the subject though, I feel I should also point out, if you just google it you can find a that is a term frequently used and that it's been around since the about the 1940's from what I can see. So are you suggesting it isn't a normalized term with some historical precedent, despite all of that? As for how I thought the debate was going, yes, I did think it was going somewhere, albeit slowly.
Maybe it's a result of the internet not allowing us to convey our tones of voice or what we really mean, but both O6 and I have pointed out that you frequently don't give straight answers. In all likelihood, it could just be that the debates O6 and I have had with others in our lives happened to be more didactic, so we're used to getting "Yes" or "No" answers, or sticking to a single point until it's been resolved.
What I'm seeing here is that I'm being totally misquoted and my points misconstrued. I mean, how can you argue that I "frequently don't give straight answers" when you're implying I said things that I never did or even intended? As I commented on earlier, I actually do some research on my points to make sure what I'm arguing is a straight and accurate answer, some of which, I'd point out once again, I have cited during the debate. I can't speak for your experiences with debates of course, but it appears to me you're somehow misunderstanding or totally missing what I'm saying.

And I dunno about O6, I get the impression he has a grudge against me simply because I've started some debates.
Shockwave wrote:Well what I've noticed is that a lot of times I think terminology gets mixed up. Sparky will say one thing that to him conveys what he wants to say but I'll wind up interpreting it incorrectly and then we'll have to go 10 pages of debating and mostly trying to reword or articulate what we both actually mean. The AHM Starscream debate was a perfect example of this as he and I actually did wind up agreeing on the point we were debating but it took about that many pages just to figure that out. I will definitely agree that one of the things I like about posting here is that we do have the intelligence to get into these debates. I actually do find them enjoyable.
Yes, I'd have to agree. I remember that debate on AHM you mention. I thought it was pretty funny when it ended up we actually agreed on the point we'd been debating, but it took us a while to get there because we were misinterpreting what each other meant. And like you, I find it enjoyable that we can get into these types of intelligent debates on this board. On so many other boards such debates just seem to devolve into unintelligible flaming.
Gomess wrote:I do like how adamant Sparky is in his belief. Mostly because, as far as I can tell, he doesn't think sci-fi is BETTAR than fantasy or anything. He just appreciates their inherent differences. More than most of us. =3
Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it.
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